The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Friday, November 30, 2012

Hamas: A Pawn in the Sunni-Shiite War

by Harold Rhode

Shi'ite Iran, from its inception
in 1979, saw Sunni organizations, such as Hamas, as tools with which to
undermine the Sunni rulers, who control most of the Arab world.

A full scale Middle Eastern, Islamic type of war between the Sunnis
and Shiites is raging. Officials in Washington are doing their best to
label it anything but a war; when asked if it is a war, they seem to
react in fear, and ignore the issue by saying, "We must do our best to
ensure that such a war does not happen."

By refusing to label what is going on a war, however, we may well be
preventing ourselves from devising policies which would address the
problem, and make it evolve in the best interests of the US.

Historically, Islamic warfare has not necessarily been one in which
large armies have fought each other, at least at the beginning of
conflicts. What usually happens is that there are what we in the West
call "terrorist raids," in which opposing sides send small raiding
parties into each other's territory. These raids are ongoing and cause
both sides to live in a constant state of tension with one another.

The dispute then festers until one side is strong enough to vanquish
the other; from that day on, each side lives in an uneasy relationship
with the other. The vanquished look for an opportunity to avenge their
loss. Sadly, Middle Easterners culturally are unable bring themselves to
"let bygones be bygones" – a concept totally alien to Middle Eastern
culture. Disputes therefore fester, then erupt when one side perceives
the other as weak.

When Khomeini arrived in Iran in February 1979, one of the first
statements he made to the media on the tarmac was that "he had come to
rectify a wrong which took place 1400 years ago." Westerners thought
this somewhat quaint and obviously irrelevant. All that interested them
was what he had to say about the Shah, America, and Israel. To
Westerners, especially Americans, who dismiss things that happened a few
days ago, Khomeini mumbling about some event that took place centuries
ago seemed irrelevant. Middle Easterners, however, who never forget
perceived wrongs, knew exactly what he was talking about. When the
Muslim prophet Muhammad died in 632 CE, a fight broke out among the
Muslims as to who would inherit the leadership of Islam. Those who
supported their prophet's family eventually became known as the
Shi'ites. Those who supported what might be labeled the "establishment"
in Mecca became known as the Sunnis.

The Shi'ites were defeated and their leaders were, one by one,
murdered by the Sunnis, who proceeded to take over the larger part of
Muslim world. Sunnis and Shi'ites – especially in areas where they live
together - still refight that battle, which took place almost 1400 years
ago. Moreover, thanks to the easy way information travels, Sunnis and
Shi'ites know more about each other than in the past, so this battle now
also takes place even where Sunnis and Shi'ites never knew each other.
What ended up being most important to Khomeini was not the Shah,
therefore, but devising a strategy to rectify what he considered the
great wrong that took place so long ago: bringing down the Sunni rulers
and their version of Islam, and replacing them with the "true," Shi'ite,
version of Islam.No wonder Saudi rulers, who are members of an extreme Sunni version
of Islam called Wahhabism, and their fellow Gulf Cooperation Council
Sunni-ruled Gulf States, understood immediately that Khomeini was a
mortal threat.

Sadly, our political establishment, who, as Westerners, simply do not
live as deeply in history, had an immensely difficult time -- and still
do -- assimilating Saudi, Jordanian, Egyptian, and other allied
leaders' concerns.

In addition, on 9/11, Osama bin Laden vented his rage, blaming the West for what it did to Islam 80 years ago.
Western experts of the Middle East racked their brains trying to figure
out what that meant, but to Sunni Muslims, the answer was obvious: the
Ottoman Caliphate was abolished by Ataturk and his colleagues. Many
Muslims believe this degradation was imposed on Turkey after its defeat
in World War I. For Sunnis, the Ottoman Caliph, the rightful ruler of
the entire Muslim world, had been humiliated by people who could not
have been Muslims. For Shi'ites, the abolishment of this "usurper"
institution was a relief; the Sunni ruler, they believed, wanted nothing
more than to destroy Shi'ism, the only "true" Islam.

As for last week's mini-war between Israel and Hamas, the members of
Hamas are Sunni fundamentalists; it therefore seems it would be only
natural for the Sunni world to support them. But Iran, from the
inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979, saw organizations such as
Hamas as tools to help them undermine the Sunni rulers, who control most
of the Arab world.

Iranians understood that they could not stand up to the Arab world
militarily, so Iran looked for Arab causes to support, which would
demonstrate to the Arab masses that their rulers were weak and unable to
solve problems, such as Israel's existence in the heart of the Arab and
Muslim world, and the tyranny under which Arabs live.

First, the Iranians took over the Israel issue. For many years, Arab
rulers had talked about defeating Israel but kept failing, thus heaping
shame and humiliation on the Muslims -- in Middle Eastern culture, a
fate worse than death. So Iran took on the Israel issue, which is, at
best, peripheral to Shi'ites. For Shi'ites, the supposed holy status of
Jerusalem is a Sunni innovation. The "holy status" was invented by hated
Sunni rulers about 50 years after Muhammad's death, and thus to
Shi'ites is an illegal innovation. Iran seems to have calculated that if
it made this Sunni issue its own, and it stood up to the Israelis, it
might gain the support of the Sunni masses against their rulers, and
thus help Iran destroy these Sunni rulers and thereby win an important
battle in their unending 1,400 year war against the Sunnis.

In Lebanon, moreover, Iran created Hizbullah, a Shi'ite military
organization – actually an arm of the Iranian military -- which
eventually fought Israel to a standstill in 2006. This was a huge public
relations boost for Iran: no Sunni leaders had ever before managed to
best Israel. Almost no Arab rulers complained about Israel going into
Lebanon, while at the same time the head of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah,
instantly became a folk hero in many parts of the Arab world.

For Iran, Gaza was an opportunity too good to pass up. Iran developed
ways of supplying Hamas with weapons to use against Israel, making use
of Egypt's marginal control of the Sinai Peninsula that abuts Gaza. Over
the past few years, Iran has supplied Gaza with missiles and rockets
that could hit Tel Aviv, and has brought Hamas operatives to Iran for
training.

After the so-called ceasefire, Ismail Haniyeh, one of Hamas's senior
political leaders, went out of his way to thank Iran for its help.
Thereafter, Iran dispatched a ship with missiles to resupply Hamas with
missiles.

Egypt, by contrast, appeared not to want trouble on its border with
Israel, and worked with Israel to rein Hamas in. Egypt's fundamentalist
Sunni ruler from the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Morsi, did not, as one
might have expected, side with Hamas -- a sub-branch of the Egyptian
Muslim brotherhood -- against Israel. Morsi seems to have many reasons
for avoiding a conflict:

Egypt's economy is collapsing; Morsi needs American economic support or he will not be able to feed his people.

If Egypt attacked Israel, Israel might destroy Egypt's military,
which currently is no match for Israel's; so it is in the Egyptian
military's interest to keep the peace.

If Morsi fights Israel, his military -- which is still in place from
the days of Hosni Mubarak, even though, upon assuming power, Morsi
replaced its leaders, and which benefits from American military largesse
and which controls vast parts of the economy -- might overthrow him.

Morsi wants to consolidate his power at home, and then, after
becoming a modern pharaoh, push the Muslim Brotherhood's agenda not only
to re-Islamize Egypt, but also the rest of the Muslim world. This plan
may be tall and clearly long-term, but ever since the Muslim
Brotherhood's founding in 1928, that has been its main goal. Morsi is
himself a senior member of the Brotherhood.

The timing of Hamas's attack on Israel put Morsi in a bind: even
though he had not yet consolidated his power, if the situation had
gotten truly out of hand, Morsi might have been forced into confronting
Israel.

Combining all of these reasons, Morsi won the day: he mediated
between Hamas and Israel, stopped the conflict from zooming out of
control, and pacified the Americans who would now feel required to
continue the economic, military and even political support Morsi so
desperately needs to keep his sweeping new authoritarian powers beyond
the reach of any check or balance. By not getting into a war with
Israel, Morsi kept the Egyptian military at bay.

It is therefore not surprising that Morsi felt he could strike now in
Egypt and grant himself these full dictatorial powers – far greater
than Mubarak ever had – and there would be nothing that America, now
feeling indebted to him, would do about it.

The Sunni fundamentalist Morsi is still engaged in an existential
battle with the Iranian Shi'ites for the hearts and minds of Islam. Each
side loathes the other. If one side triumphs in this 1,400 year old
conflict, the other side loses. From Morsi's point of view, however, it
seems that this fight must wait for another time.

Iran seems to be losing everywhere. In Syria, where its Alawite
rulers are an offshoot of Shi'ism and recognized by many Shi'ite
authorities as Shi'ites, Iran is losing this war to the more numerous
local Sunnis.

Lebanon is also unstable; Hizbullah members there appear unsure how
they can survive without the support of the Syrian Alawites. Iran is
also a long way off, and it is not easy to resupply Hizbullah from
there.

In Sudan, Iran's weapons plants have been destroyed. It was weapons from these factories which made their way to Gaza.

Could Israel's massive destruction of Hamas's rocket and missile
capability be one more step on the road to eliminating Iran's nuclear
program? Iran's allies are being destroyed or weakened, one by one.
Sudan and Gaza are gone, at least for the time being. The Syrian regime
does not appear to be winning its ruthless war against its insurgents.
Will Hizbullah be able to remain strong without weapons coming in from
Syria? Clearly, Hizbullah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, cannot, whatever
he says, feel so secure: he has spent most of the past few years hiding
underground from the Israelis. Shi'ite-ruled Iraq is preoccupied with
its internal problems. Iran is gradually being left to stand alone. If
Israel attacks Iran, Iran no longer has any useful Muslim allies to help
it against the Israelis. Iran would therefore have greater difficulty
confronting Israel.

In the end, Hamas was a pawn for Iran in the Sunni-Shiite war. Its
leaders may be wondering where to turn, now that Egypt is ruled by
fellow Sunni fundamentalists. For the moment, at least, Egypt does not
seem to want to provoke Israel. Both Hamas and Iran, therefore, stand to
gain from continuing their close relationship. Morsi understands that
the Iranians want nothing more than to have the Sunnis confront Israel
and lose -- a defeat which would help Iran in its war against the
Sunnis.

Hamas has become a tool for both the Sunni and Shi'ite
fundamentalists to use in their battle not only against the non-Muslim
world, but against each other. If, in the Middle East, bygones cannot be
bygones, this battle will continue until Allah decides which side is
the most worthy and makes sure that side wins.Harold RhodeSource: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3472/hamas-sunni-shiiteCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.